


Penumbra

by grilledpbnj



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Nightmares, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 09:44:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/822869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grilledpbnj/pseuds/grilledpbnj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will decides to kill himself and Hannibal talks him down whoo 1st fic</p>
            </blockquote>





	Penumbra

**Author's Note:**

  * For [unofficial_channels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unofficial_channels/gifts).



> what do I put here

The answer came quietly to him, in the middle of the night.

The nightmare seemed to last a day. It cycled in and out of familiar channels, bringing him barely to consciousness only to swallow him once more, until it finally roused him thoroughly wetted with sweat, teeth chattering.

He sat on the edge of his bed with his face in his hands.

There was nothing new in the dream. He was stalked and largely alone, save the occasional company of an antlered wraith, and his senses were numb. A continuous cushion of black pushed upon him. Every sound was clogged, and every image seeped faintly red, as if a screen of blood was on his eyes. He heard, and he saw, muddled victims.

More than tormented, he was tired.

He didn't have to look at the clock to know that morning was almost upon him. He could hear birds singing outside. Soon he would have to go sleepless to his work, chin-upping it through conversation and classroom alike. At some point (not now, not soon, not predictably) he would get the call from Jack Crawford.

Enter the waking nightmare. And enter _consciously_ , the waking nightmare that was _his purpose_.

 _You'll have to pick a method_ , said some soft, internal voice.

Method? Every method had been poisoned for him. He had seen all the pictures of bloated, forgotten bodies in bathtubs, mottled with poison and split wrists, had personally smelled brain matter from a hundred gunshot wounds. There was only a centimeter of a difference between dead and vegetative.

He refused to survive in such a fractional way.

He would be thorough. He would be meticulous. All of this- it would be over.

-

"Will?"

He snapped to. "A clergyman," he said. "Or someone involved in the church. White, male, late forties..." He observed the area of heaviest mutilation. "Impotent. Balding, maybe. Probably divorcing, or divorced and involved in a custody battle."

"Did he know the guy?" One of the aides, chewing his pen, speculating wildly. "Saw him with his wife, maybe?"

"No." He began to snap off his gloves. "He saw him at random, he envied him, he killed him. Killing, it's- it's been a fantasy of his, for a long time. He's been planning, but he never thought he would do it, but something..." He paused, glove half off, gazing at the crime scene. "Something set him off." Nothing leapt out at him. He finished peeling off the gloves, headed for the door, and trashed them. "There was only a rudimentary amount of precaution involved. He's sloppy. He'll kill again, but he'll make a mistake, if he hasn't already. I'd look for nearby discards. The murder weapon, maybe, or the genitals."

Crawford caught him at the door. "Taking off early?" His look was appraising.

"I have a doctor's appointment," said Will. "You don't need me for this; he's simple. He'll fall right into your pocket."

"If you say so." Crawford had had him on a loose leash lately. Perhaps he sensed the lull, and misinterpreted it. He eyed the body, and raised his eyebrows. "Simple?"

Will shrugged. "He's no Chesapeake Ripper. Oh- here.” He went in his pocket and pulled out his wallet, and handed Crawford a few twenties.

“What’s this?” Crawford frowned.

“For gas, a few months ago.”

“Oh,” Crawford said thoughtfully. “I’d forgotten.”

“Well, there you go,” said Will, with an awkward clearing of his throat. “Taking off now. Good luck with-” He gestured. “This.”

“Right,” said Crawford, turning to the crime scene with resignation. “Take care, Will.”

He trudged back to his car alone.

-

"How are you feeling, Will?

"Well," he said. "I'm feeling well."

"I'm glad to hear that."

Dr. Lecter's office was pleasantly understimulating. Still, quiet- almost morose. There was unobtrusive music in the background. The bookshelves lay in slight shadow, the desktop edge barely touched by what sunlight diffused through the curtains, the wall crimson and set back into the dark. It was all very dim. And red.

"Why do you think that is?"

"I'm sorry?" Will had to drag his attention back.

"Why is it that you feel well now-" Dr. Lecter sat quietly opposite him, hands folded in his lap. "When until today you have been feeling so poorly?"

"Must be something in the air," said Will, deflecting pathetically.

Dr. Lecter made no visible note of the deflection, but watched him, his eyes two keen spots in the near-dark.

Will amended. "I don't know. I feel- optimistic."

"Optimistic," repeated Dr. Lecter, thoughtfully.

"Renewed. I slept well."

"And again, I'm happy to hear it, but still I wonder-" said Dr. Lecter. "Why?"

Will was quiet for the moment. _Careful_ , he told himself. "Last night I took the dogs out for a late walk,” he said finally. “When I left the house, the sun was going down, and when I returned, the moon had begun to rise. It was full."

"I watched it rise as well," said Dr. Lecter, when Will paused. "Through this window. It was very beautiful."

"It was, it was peaceful. There were no clouds in the sky, not one. I sat and watched it from the porch."

"And that helped you to sleep?"

"It helped me to think."

"Think about what?"

He felt some deep, internal tremor. A warning. "About how _temporary_ everything is."

"Temporary?"

"Everyone dies," he said, too fervently. "And suffering is terrible, but suffering dies. Every miserable thing ceases, eventually. It just- passes. There is always an end."

"And this is reassuring to you?" It was impossible to read Dr. Lecter's face.

"It sounds bleak." Will smiled, or tried to. His face felt wrong. "What I mean to say is- all things pass."

"They do indeed," said Dr. Lecter softly.

-

With a lethality of roughly 99%, relative quickness, and comparatively little pain, a gunshot would to the head was the ideal method of committing suicide.

Ultimately he decided on putting the gun in his mouth. Putting the muzzle to your temple could be affective provided you didn't miss, but aim was likely to be compromised by high emotion and shaking hands.

He put the dogs out.

He had written a note and put it out earlier. It said what to feed the dogs, where they might go, and where someone could find his important papers. It did not say good-bye.

He put the gun on the table.

The list ran in his mind, the list that had been occupying him for the past week. It had become a pacifying routine. Papers sorted and made easy to find, done. Will updated. House neatened. Debts paid. Useless, old things thrown away, to make it easier on whoever had to sort through his effects. He skimmed over it, checking off as he went, and reached the end.

It was done. It was all done.

There was nothing new in this feeling. It was as if he were back in the realm between nightmare and waking, with the numbing cushion of black all around him, narrowing his vision to a settling pinpoint on the gun. He felt very little. He lifted the gun, and observed that his hand was shaking. There was a distant speck of concern, on the farthest shore of his mind.

Don’t miss.

Knock.

His hand jumped badly. The numbness evaporated in an instant, and he felt as if his skin had been ripped off. Burning fear tore up his arms, and his hands clamped around the gun. He pointed it ridiculously at the door, heart throbbing in his ears, as if it was the visitor who had come to kill him. He saw, he _heard_ , the heavy breathing of the beast.

“Will?”

Dr. Lecter's voice, however soft, distinguished itself through the door.

 _It’s not the end_ , the inner voice rationalized. _Put the gun away and let him in. Lie. There’s always tomorrow._

But his jaw was locked, his throat hard and aching. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t unlatch his fingers from the gun. Months of miserable, compounded _knowing_ pounded in his brain. A hundred killers’ minds searched with splayed fingers for an opening.

“Will, can you hear me?”

 _I just want to die_ , begged a voice, mirrored instantly by _I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die_.

He forced himself to breathe. He’d done it a million times with Jack, swallowed his stuck throat and grimaced and just did his job.

“Yes,” he said, and congratulated himself on the normalcy of his tone.

“May I come in?” Dr. Lecter's voice was as light and quietly musical as on any day in his office.

“No,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry?”

His face crumpled, his shoulders sank, and he struggled wordlessly to speak as his gunhand fell back onto the table. His other hand he pressed to his mouth. He felt himself shaking and could not stop. He sank all the way to the ground. No. There was no tomorrow. He couldn’t temper the pounding in his head, couldn’t fake stability for another half-second of human interaction. It was happening now.

“You knew,” he said against his knuckles.

“Yes,” said Dr. Lecter.

He pressed his teeth to his knuckles. “Have you told anyone?”

“No.”

“Are you going to call someone?”

“You would be dead by the time they arrived,” said Dr. Lecter, with perfect, quiet assurance.

He caught the first ugly, choking sob and bit it into his palm.

He heard Dr. Lecter try the door. It was locked. He had taken precautions.

“Why do you want to kill yourself, Will?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He managed to turn that sob into a croaking laugh. “I don’t know- probably because of the whole, peering into the minds of murderers thing. And all of the fantastic side effects. It’s the nightmares, Dr. Lecter. It’s the nightmares and it’s the hallucinations and it’s the never knowing what I’m going to see, or hear, or do, and feeling like-” His hand fluttered against his face. “Knowing that-”

“That what, Will?” Dr. Lecter's voice was endlessly patient.

“That I’m going to be next.”

There was long quiet after he said it, as he suspected Dr. Lecter pondered the same ambiguity as he did. Next on the totem pole, or its next architect? Next in the garden, or its next gardener? He stared at the gun until his eyes lost focus and it faded into a gray blur.

“Are you still there?” he whispered.

“I am still here, Will.”

“I- I feel as if I’m dreaming all of this,” he confessed. “Like this isn’t really happening.” As if from the outside, a lucid remnant looked at him and wondered, How did I get here?

“This is very real, Will.”

What was the turning point? His life ran through his head in a violent outburst, flashes of youth and friends, meals eaten, cars driven, wet dog noses, walking in the woods, pulling on his boots, getting rained on, laughter, crossing crowded streets, music, memories, bodies heaped on a pile, what is your _motive?_

“Will, I remind you that you have another option. You can quit. Jack Crawford would not want you to kill yourself over this.”

“I can’t _quit_.” Miserably, in exhaustion, he rubbed his eyes. “If I quit, people die. If I quit, killers continue, and they slip through the cracks- they go years, decades without capture because _no one can see them_.”

“If you are dead, how will you help them to be captured?”

“I know it’s irrational. But I won’t know- if I’m dead, I won’t know anything, I won’t feel a thing.” He finished in a rapturous whisper, and felt his own skin crawl at his tone. Tears ran suddenly, freely down his face.

God, his head burned.

 _Do it_ , said the voice. _While you have the chance. He won’t let this go, none of them will- it’s into a facility with you, it’s medication and white walls-_

His hand was rattling around the gun. Dr. Lecter was silent.

 _Do it_ , said the voice.

 _Don’t miss_ , said another. Jack Crawford visiting his hospital bed out of obligation, less and less over time, nursing a distant and irrational hope that he might awake and be useful again, Alana coming at least once to stand in silence, unable to see his face for the bandages, watching the monitor blip, blip, blip, blip in reflection of his passive existence, his heart alive and his head utterly dead, his body a sick and still-pulsing remnant of what had once been Will Graham. His throat caught repeatedly.

 _Don’t miss_.

 _Do it now_.

His sobs finally broke, barely breaking into his notice. White noise. Distant. It blurred with the compulsive voices in his head, and the mesmerizing beat of his heart, raising its ever-increasing alarm bell.

 _You are going to die_ , said his body.

 _I know_ , he thought. He felt peace.

He had the gun on his lips.

“Will.”

And just as it had at the initial knock, his hand jumped. His eyes flew open and his hand swiped over them once, hard, to clear the tears. The door was wide open.

Dr. Lecter stood before him, hands in pockets, looking down at him.

His expression was entirely undetectable.

“Will, no matter what you do, the moon will wax, and wane.”

Through his clutching fingers, Will stared up at him..

“People will die,” continued Dr. Lecter.

“You cannot save all of them.”

Will said nothing. He felt wetness all down his face, but not much else.

“In fact, you can save very few.”

Dr. Lecter watched him with great keenness.

“You may catch every killer you can find, but people will still die. Of illness. Of their own stupidity. And of the killer you cannot find.

“There will always be someone, some thing, that slips through the cracks.”

It was quiet for a moment longer. Through the open door, Will could hear a bird singing faintly.

Dr. Lecter seemed to hear it as well. He listened for a moment, and then he bent to Will’s level, and very gently undid his grip, and took the gun from him. He turned the gun over in his hands, looking at it thoughtfully. “In your field, Will, there is no success.” He looked at him. “There is only survival.”

He stood. He paused for a moment to look around, and then fetched a coat from the corner, returned, and handed it down to Will.

Wordlessly, thoughtlessly, he wrapped it around his shoulders. There was a faint, cold breeze coming in through the open door. And the sound of birdsong.


End file.
